Three valuable works by Cezanne, Picasso and Gauguin have resurfaced in Paris, 23 years after being stolen from the Fine Arts Museum in Buenos Aires.
The pictures, which were stolen on Christmas Day in 1980 in Argentina's biggest-ever art theft, were recovered by Interpol agents when a Taiwanese national was attempting
to sell them to a Paris art gallery.
The return of the three works - a Cezanne watercolour 'The Road" worth up to 143,000 euros, the Renoir oil painting "Head of a Young Girl with a Blue Ribbon" worth up to 625,000 euros and the Gauguin drawing "The Cry" worth up to 178,000 euros - will be a much-trumpeted success for the Buenos Aires museum.
It recently suffered another theft from the same collection bequeathed by the wealthy Argentinian arts patron Mercedes Santamarina, a "study for hands" by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin, which has not been recovered.
The thieves in 1980 also made off with 13 other pictures from the museum, including several Renoirs, another Cezanne, and works by Degas and Matisse.
The museum had been in touch with private investigators, who were asking 20 per cent of the pictures' value in exchange, in their attempts to recover the missing works. But Argentinian agents from Interpol intervened in Paris in the nick of time, although the culprit is still at large. The Taiwanese suspect has been identified but not yet arrested.
"As the director of the museum, I am jumping with joy at the recovery of the works without payment, and will kiss the ears of the agent who found them," the museum chief, Jorge Glusberg, told the Argentinian newspaper La Nacion.
But it remains unclear whether the museum will end up having to pay a reward to the private agency, which may have been co-operating with Interpol.
- INDEPENDENT
